


it's always better when you're by my side

by silent_h



Category: Firebringer - Team StarKid
Genre: (you can see keeri & zazz how you like tbh but i see them as qp), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Fluff and Angst, jemilla's autistic bc i'm autistic and i say so send tweet, lots of swearing, no capitalisation we die like cavemen, the rest of the tribe is also there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 02:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21092057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silent_h/pseuds/silent_h
Summary: the leaves fall from the trees, the sky is blue, and people have strange black marks inked onto their skin. the earth is full of mysteries, and mankind is gonna have to figure it out





	it's always better when you're by my side

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: basically everything in the musical (mostly molag's kidnapping of jmills & jmills being kicked out i guess)

she’s but a few summers past birth when the invaders come. the battle is loud and bloody and long and, by the time her mother draws her last breath, she has a new tribe.

she had another name, presumably, but molag names her jemilla, and so jemilla she becomes.

the new tribe is louder than her birth one, and so much larger that it spins her head to see the sheer mass of people who follow her new mother. she _ misses _ her old tribe, misses the people and the routines and the grass that felt perfectly suited to be under her feet and the water that was always the perfect amount of cold and the little cave that was almost never wet.

(sometimes, when she’s feeling very not right, she finds a quiet place and counts all the things that are the same: the leaves still fall, the sky is still blue, and her mark is still curled around the top of her thigh.

it’s enough. it has to be)

she’s not the first foundling (she’s not even the first of _ molag’s_, though the others died before she arrived), but nearly a whole moon passes and she still feels as much of an outsider as she did when she arrived.

she tries and tries and eventually the rest of her new littermates allow her to tag along with them. ducker is the first, another foundling who has apprenticed the high priest, and with him comes schwoopsie, whose thoughts are sometimes too quick for jemilla to follow. then there’s smelly balls, who will sometimes sit with her and yell when they get frustrated by the world, and tiblyn, who holds up the sky with arms that have a different mark on each, and emberly, who shows her where the sweetest berries grow, and keeri, who always smiles at her.

and then there’s zazzalil.

the girl is _ infuriating_. she ignores every attempt of jemilla’s to talk to her, and she steals away the attention of anyone jemilla’s with. she finds ways to escape from work and she takes more food than she should and she’s always wasting time and resources on her _ stupid _ ideas. and then, whenever she gets caught slacking off, molag just gently cuffs her head instead of punishing her.

it makes her so fucking _ mad_.

she still tries (everyone is friends with her except for zazzalil and the unfinished set bothers at her like a gap in her teeth) but it never seems to come to anything. zazzalil is still mocking when she deigns to speak to her, and still seems to prefer to be anywhere that jemilla is not.

and then, one day jemilla is drying herself off from her morning bathing when zazzalil stumbles out of the trees.

and jemilla’s cheeks are _ burning _ as she scrambles to hide herself because _ this is what happens when you don’t fucking listen to the new bathing schedules, zazzalil _ and zazzalil is just _ staring, _ and then she says, _ holy shit, your _mark, before turning and running back the way she came.

and what the _ fuck_.

(many things have changed since she came to the tribe but her mark is as unchanged as the day she was born and if zazzalil _ says _ something in that mocking way she has then— 

then jemilla will—

she’ll—)

jemilla is dressed by the time zazzalil comes back, dragging keeri along with her, because of _ course _ she needed someone to watch her tease jemilla.

(her cheeks are still warm but she can still kick her ass, she _ can_)

but instead zazzalil spins keeri around and says _ look_, and keeri slips the side of her armhole down her arm and—

there on the back of keeri’s shoulder is the same mark jemilla’s had since birth.

(it’s not unheard of for marks to be shared but this is the first person she’s met that shares with _ her_)

_ oh_, she breathes, stepping closer, and for the first time, zazzalil doesn’t pull a face as she approaches.

_ lemme see, lemme see_, keeri yells as she turns back around, and jemilla pulls up the hem of her skirt.

keeri leans in close, closer than jemilla has probably ever been to her, and then she _ beams_.

_ holy shit, i’ve never been able to see it before! _ she says, eyes lighting up, _ it’s so pretty! _ and then she says, _ woah, maybe this means we’re family_, and _ oh_, for a moment jemilla _ hopes_—

_ nah_, zazzalil says, snorting, _ she’s an outsider, remember? _ and that’s that.

it’s cool, sure, and keeri is certainly more prone to talk to her than she used to, and zazzalil now looks at her with interest whenever they dress in close quarters, but there is nothing more said of it.

or at least, not to _ jemilla_, anyway.

because keeri and zazzalil share _ everything_, and she watches them play and laugh and goof off together and something _ hurts, _ something curls in the pit of her stomach and she hates it she hates it she hates it.

(it’s zazzalil’s fault that keeri doesn’t want to hang around with _ her _ instead. it’s zazzalil’s fault that the tribe complains when jemilla tries to improve life for everyone. it’s zazzalil’s fault that everyone flocks around her like _ she’s _ the leader, while jemilla works and works and works and nobody even _ cares— _

jemilla loves her tribe, she does, but sometimes it is so goddamn hard to love zazzalil)

summers pass and their bonds remain mostly unchanged and they grow (though zazzalil and emberly least of all) and, one day, schwoopsie proposes.

jemilla accepts. it’s a good match; schwoopsie is pretty and funny and useful and a passable fighter (and when she _ grins _ jemilla’s stomach flips in the most delightful of ways), and, most importantly, molag approves.

(no. most importantly, molag says that jemilla doesn’t _ need _ her approval, because good leaders need no one’s approval, and jemilla is a good fucking leader.

and jemilla cries and schwoopsie kisses her and molag lets her hold her stick as she marries them and it is a good day)

it isn’t until later that night that jemilla finds that schwoopsie doesn’t have a mark.

(everyone knows and no one must have thought to tell jemilla because it was just a thing that _ everyone _ just _ knew _ and how is she still an outsider even now—)

_it’s not like, it’s not like a _thing, schwoopsie says, shrugging. _it’s just like, uh, i’m different, yknow? s’pretty cool shit to not be like everyone else_, and jemilla’s never thought of it that way, but yeah.

yeah.

it _ is _ pretty cool shit.

_ congrats_, _ jmills_, zazzalil says, the next morning, and there’s something _ off _ about her voice, and the way her smile looks weirdly stretched.

jemilla still isn’t the _ best _ at faces, sometimes, but she’s spent so long watching zazzalil that she’s pretty sure she can tell when she’s not happy.

(they’re not kids anymore, and zazzalil is _ still _ annoyed with her existence? _ seriously??_)

more summers pass and the tribe grows and shrinks and grows. people join and sometimes people leave, and more and more new things are discovered every day.

jemilla’s leadership is mostly uncontested, and schwoopsie still seems content to be married to her, and life is good and stable and she works very hard to make sure it will always be like that.

and then zazzalil ‘invents’ fire.

(it’s not zazz’s fault, really. jemilla knows that, knows that the tribe were already frayed and untrustful with molag’s revelations; knows that she herself was caught off balance by molag’s lies and molag’s leaving and zazzalil’s trek into the night, that she probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind when zazz said _ no— _

it still fucking hurts when they turn their back on her)

jemilla doesn’t know why she ever tried to get her old tribe’s approval when they were clearly so _ awful_. she’s angry in exile, somewhat, but it doesn’t really sink in how _ betrayed _ she feels until she is accepted without question by clark’s tribe.

they are kind and they are beautiful and they are supportive and she loves them and they love her and everything is _ perfect_.

they’re almost identical to humans but for one key difference: no one in the tribe has a mark. she’s still different, still an outsider, and yet she’s never felt so at home in her life.

she tells them of her faint memories of her birth tribe, and the bittersweet memories of her last tribe. she tells them about how they used to worship a duck and believe that the sweetest member of their family held up the sky; she tells them about her first wife and the way she would entertain them all and make them laugh; she tells them how zazzalil ‘invented’ fire, how zazzalil was always ignoring her, how zazzalil took her tribe from her, how zazzalil was always causing trouble, how zazzalil how zazzalil how zazzalil—

_ you don’t have to think about her if she causes you pain, jay, _ clark says, claire says, and jemilla _ tries _ but she’s just still so _ angry_.

(even now, in a whole different tribe, zazzalil is still causing problems for her)

but then zazzalil comes _ back_, and offers to be her _ wife _ and— 

huh. 

_ huh_. 

she thinks about being married to zazzalil and uh— 

she uh—

it’s— 

(she decides to examine that after the tribe’s safe)

but then the tribe is saved and she has no time to examine her state of mind because chorn is not of the earth and jemilla sees _ everything_.

everything is— well. it’s _ everything_.

electricity and wars and steam and stars and oceans and the internet and roads and planes and bombs and medicine and _ soulmates_—

the marks inked into their skin are the names of their _ soulmates_, the other halves of their _ souls_, and jemilla still doesn’t know how to read but there’s only one person whose name can be on both her and keeri’s bodies.

_ zazzalil’s _ her _ soulmate_, and if jemilla wasn’t already curled on the floor she thinks that this would have made her weak at the knees.

she thinks of how often zazz took up her thoughts when they were kids, how jemilla ached to be around her, how even in paradise she spent most of her time thinking of her, and it all makes _ sense _ now because zazz is her _ soulmate _ and—

and— 

wait.

zazz isn't just _ jemilla's _ soulmate.

(most of jemilla’s memories go like this:

zazzalil ignoring her, mocking her, avoiding her

zazzalil choosing keeri, every single time)

jemilla still proposes, because she said she’d take zazz as her wife and she doesn’t break her vows; and zazz _ refuses_, and she knows, she must have realised what jemilla figured out—

and then zazz gets down on one knee and sings her own song back to her instead, and it’s _ perfect, _ and jemilla starts to cry, because she knows it can’t last.

the future memories aren’t _ solid_, exactly, but they can see enough to rebuild the village better and more secure than it was before. they work _ together_, the tribe looking towards the both of them for guidance, and everything runs much more smoothly than before. jemilla gives them structure and purpose and zazz gives them rest time and enrichment and everyone is _ happy_. 

zazz works harder than she ever has before, building more spears and trapping the fires in circles of stones to give them warmth within their makeshift huts and using fire-blackened sticks to sketch designs of things she’d seen in the future memories onto flat stones. she’s so busy that jemilla barely sees her during daylight, and when they curl up together at night zazz is always the first to fall asleep, and jemilla starts to hope that zazz never realises what the marks are.

and then, a half moon after they start rebuilding, zazz runs into their still unfinished hut in the middle of the day and says, _ uh, we’re soulmates? _

and jemilla puts down the stone she was sharpening and sits down on their bed furs and huffs out a long breath and says, _ yes. _

_ oh_, zazz says. her face is very blank. she doesn’t sit down.

she must know then what jemilla needs to do.

and so jemilla looks at her, her zazzalil, who she’s spent her whole life chasing without quite knowing why, who she’s always known wasn’t quite meant for her, and says, _ we can stop being married now. it’s okay that you don’t want _me.

and zazz says, _ with complete respect, jmills, what the actual _fuck.

jemilla blinks.

_are you fucking _kidding _me,_ zazz cries, arms waving wildly. _i thought _you _didn’t want_ me_!_ _i thought that’s why you hadn’t said anything! because you didn’t want me but didn’t know how to say it!_

(little zazzalil followed by the rest of the tribe like a moth to a flame, mind jumping in leaps and bounds and circles around everyone else’s, inspiring protests and dances and rescue missions and rebellion and enticing her back from the most perfect tribe she’s ever met, and _she didn’t think jemilla wanted her??_)

_ babe_, jemilla says, _ how could i _ not _ want you_.

zazz’s cheeks flush and her breath stutters. _ yeah_, she says, _ that uh. that back. at you_. she shakes her head. _like the _ fuck_, jemilla, of _ course _ i want you. you’re fucking awesome. why wouldn’t i—? _

_ because you have keeri. _ zazz’s face scrunches up, as if jemilla _ needs _ to explain this to her, as if she hasn’t always known. _ she’s your soulmate— _

_ and so are you? _

_ —and you’ve always chosen her. _

zazz reels back at that, rocking on her feet. her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

_ you always went with her, _ jemilla says, quietly, looking down at her lap. she makes a frustrated noise. _ every time i tried to talk to you. every time i tried to even _ look _ at you you always just— _

_ because you’re fucking terrifying! _ zazz explodes, and jemilla’s head snaps back up, _ and i _ totally _ mean that in the nicest possible way. but i've known keeri from birth okay and then you turned up and you were this, like, _ she starts to pace_, this badass outsider! you were the future leader! and you hated me! you were always watching me, waiting for me to slip up and pull some stupid shit so you could yell at me, and you were so fucking _ pretty, _ ‘milla. and i was just so. scared of how i felt when i was around you. _

and jemilla thinks back, and _ oh_, because zazz lashes out when she’s nervous, and _ oh, _ because zazz runs when she’s scared, and if she was doing this because she _ liked _ her—?

(zazz has been like this for as long as she can remember which means that zazz has liked her for— 

oh

_ wow_)

and jemilla’s thoughts are too jumbled so she hums until she can put words together again and then says the first thing she can think of, which is: were _ pretty? _

zazz scowls as she comes to a stop in front of her. _ fuck you_, she says, as she kneels down to face her, _ you _ know _ you’re beautiful_. she reaches out and cups jemilla’s cheek. _ keeri has half of my soul, _ she says, more seriously than jemilla has ever seen her, _ and you have the other half. just like always. _

_ uhhhhhh_, she says, weakly; zazz smirks. and then, before jemilla can stop herself, _ don’t you own any of your own soul? _

zazz blinks, slowly, and then tilts jemilla’s head up ever so slightly. _ i have the other other half. _

_ i don’t uh, _ jemilla mumbles, as zazz draws in closer, _ i don’t think that’s how math works_.

_ it’s cool, numbers don’t exist yet. _and then she closes the gap and kisses her.

it’s not their first kiss, but there’s something different now that she knows that zazz actually _wants_ her, and wants _this_. and jemilla has been married so many different times but she’s never felt like _this_ before, and _fuck, they’ve wasted_ _so much time_. she whines in annoyance against zazz's mouth and she can feel as zazz giggles back.

_ that’s _ definitely _ not how math works, _she says when they break to breathe (because it'll irritate her if she doesn't point it out), and zazz laughs.

_ you’re such a fucking weirdo_, she says, fondly. _ i love you so much_.

_ i love you too, asshole_, jemilla says, leaning forward to rest her forehead against zazz’s. _ now come on; we have work to do. _

**Author's Note:**

> uhh tumblr me at yesokayiknow if u wanna cry about jemilla w me or thisonesfordrawing if u wanna look at my firebringer shitpost comics ok bye


End file.
